What is True Power?

In Matthew Ch 9:23-33, Jesus does 2 incredible actions. In the first part, the disciples and Jesus in are a boat when a storm starts up. The boat is tossed and turned and the disciples are scared. Jesus is calm, in fact, He is asleep. They wake him terrified. Notice that even in their panic, the disciples held Jesus in enough regard to think He could save them. They might not have known how, but they at least figured He could. Jesus then calmed the storm. The disciples, even though they asked for his help, were amazed. How often are we amazed at God's work in our lives? We pray and ask for His movement, then we are either amazed at the result, or puffed up that we had a part in it. God longs to give us our requests, as long as they are in line with His will. The second part of this section shows Jesus having power over two demon-possessed men. The demon spirits in these men recognize Jesus and plead with him not to torture them. Jesus even allowed their wish and sent them into a herd of pigs who ran off a cliff. To the Jewish listener, those pigs got what they deserved as they were seen as unclean animals. However, this passage showed Jesus as having power even over the enemy! The demon-spirits had to ask permission first. Could Jesus simply take away all of the calamity and strife in our life? Of course. He has power over all, as shown in a sampling in these passages. Why then doesn't he? Which are you more grateful of, things done for you, or things you work through? We are called to love God and worship Him. This becomes harder as life gets easy. We mistakenly put our faith in ourselves during those times. Experiencing pain and difficulties builds us and makes us stronger. We arrive at the other side better for the experience. True power then, is being able, but still wanting growth in all. Storms in life prune us and take off dead and unnecessary limbs. God actually is blessing us by allowing these storms....that is true power.